Films - April 2017

Languages

Czech

The Devil's Mistress

(Lída Baarová)

Directed by Filip Renč

(Czech Republic/Slovakia, 2016, 106 min.)

Beautiful Czech actress Lída Baarová takes Germany's silver screen by storm and in the process steals the heart of one of the Third Reich's most powerful men — Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda. Baarová rejects offers from Hollywood to enter into a passionate affair with one of Hitler's closest followers, but at what price? (Czech and German).

The Avalon Theatre

Thu., April 13, 8 p.m.

Tiger Theory

(Teorie tygra)

Directed by Radek Bajgar

(Czech Republic, 2016, 101 min.)

Veterinarian Jan feels he's losing his grip on life, which is controlled by his wife Olga, and yearns for the call of the wild. An unconventional patient gives him an idea, setting him on a journey of self-discovery that just might change his life for the better, even though it might lead him to the nuthouse along the way (Q&A with director in attendance).

The Avalon Theatre

Wed., April 12, 8 p.m.

English

Alive and Kicking

Directed by Susan Glatzer

(Sweden/U.S., 2017, 88 min.)

Alive and Kicking gives the audience an intimate, insider's view into the culture of the current swing dance world while shedding light on issues facing modern society.

Landmark's Theatres

Opens Fri., April 7

Beauty and the Beast

Directed by Bill Condon

(U.S., 2017, 129 min.)

Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" is a live-action re-telling of the studio's 1991 animated classic, staying true to the original music while updating the score with several new songs.

Angelika Mosaic

Atlantic Plumbing Cinema

Landmark's Bethesda Row Cinema

The Blackcoat's Daughter

Directed by Oz Perkins

(U.S./Canada, 2017, 93 min.)

Two girls must battle a mysterious evil force when they get left behind at their boarding school over winter break.

Angelika Pop-Up at Union Market

Colossal

Directed by Nacho Vigalondo

(Canada/Spain, 2017, 110 min.)

A woman discovers that severe catastrophic events are somehow connected to the mental breakdown from which she's suffering.

Angelika Mosaic

Opens Fri., April 14

Enter the Dragon

Directed by Robert Clouse

(Hong Kong/U.S., 1973, 103 min.)

The last movie Bruce Lee made before his untimely death is one of the most popular kung fu films of all time. Lee plays a martial arts expert who infiltrates a competition on a wealthy drug dealer's private island in order to avenge his sister's death.

National Museum of African American History and Culture

Finding Oscar

Directed by Ryan Suffern

(U.S./Canada/Guatemala, 2017, 100 min.)

In a forgotten massacre during Guatemala's decades-long civil war, a young boy was spared, only to be raised by one of the very soldiers who killed his family. Nearly 30 years after the tragedy, it will take a dedicated team—from a forensic scientist to a young Guatemalan prosecutor—to uncover the truth and bring justice to those responsible — by finding the missing boy named Oscar (English and Spanish).

Landmark's Theatres

Opens Fri., April 28

Ghost in the Shell

Directed by Rupert Sanders

(U.S., 2017, 120 min.)

Directed by Rupert Sanders

In the near future, Major (Scarlett Johansson) is the first of her kind: A human saved from a terrible crash who is cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world's most dangerous criminals. As she prepares to face a new enemy, however, Major discovers that she has been lied to: her life was not saved, it was stolen.

Angelika Mosaic

Angelika Pop-Up at Union Market

Atlantic Plumbing Cinema

Landmark's Bethesda Row Cinema

I Am Not Your Negro

Directed by Raoul Peck

(France/U.S., 2017, 95 min.)

In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, which was to be a revolutionary, personal account of three assassinated leaders who were also his close friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time of Baldwin's death in 1987, he left behind only 30 completed pages of his manuscript. Now, in his incendiary new documentary, master filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished.

Landmark's E Street Cinema

I Called Him Morgan

Directed by Kasper Collin

(Sweden/U.S., 2017, 92 min.)

On a snowy night in February 1972, legendary jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan was shot dead by his common-law wife, Helen, during a gig at a club in New York City. The murder sent shockwaves through the jazz community, and the memory of the event still haunts the people who knew the Morgans. Part true-crime tale, part love story, and an all-out musical treat, I Called Him Morgan is a chronicle of the dramatic destinies of two unique personalities and the music that brought them together.

West End Cinema

In Search of Israeli Food

Directed by Roger Sherman

(U.S., 2016, 120 min.)

A portrait of the Israeli people told through food, "In Search of Israeli Cuisine" profiles chefs, home cooks, vintners and cheese-makers drawn from the more than 100 cultures — Jewish, Arab, Muslim, Christian, Druze — found in a nation only the size of New Jersey.

Landmark's Theatres

Opens Fri., April 21

Life

Directed by Daniel Espinosa

(U.S., 2017, 103 min.)

This sci-fi thriller tells the story of the six-member crew of the International Space Station that is on the cutting edge of one of the most important discoveries in human history: the first evidence of extraterrestrial life on Mars (English, Japanese and Chinese).

Atlantic Plumbing Cinema

Lion

Directed by Garth Davis

(Australia, 2016, 120 min.)

A 5-year-old Indian boy gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of miles from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia. Not wanting to hurt his adoptive parents' feelings, he suppresses his past, his emotional need for reunification and his hope of ever finding his lost mother and brother for 25 years. But a chance meeting with some fellow Indians reawakens his buried yearning (English, Bengali and Hindi).

Landmark's E Street Cinema

Norman

Directed by Joseph Cedar

(Israel/U.S., 2017, 117 min.)

Norman Oppenheimer is a small time operator who befriends a young politician at a low point in his life. Three years later, when the politician becomes an influential world leader, Norman's life dramatically changes for better and worse (English and Hebrew).

Angelika Mosaic

Opens Fri., April 21

Personal Shopper

Directed by Olivier Assayas

(France/Germany, 2017, 105 min.)

Olivier Assayas returns with this ethereal and mysterious ghost story starring Kristen Stewart as a high-fashion personal shopper to the stars who is also a spiritual medium. Grieving the recent death of her twin brother, she haunts his Paris home, determined to make contact with him.

Landmark's Bethesda Row Cinema

Landmark's E Street Cinema

The Sense of an Ending

Directed by Ritesh Batra

(U.K., 2017, 108 min.)

Jim Broadbent shines as fusty curmudgeon, exploring the longing and mystery, curiosity and regret of his past, when he is bequeathed a letter that stirs up old memories. It refers to a diary that might explain what really happened years ago between his first girlfriend Veronica and his best friend Adrian, but Veronica has intercepted the diary and refuses to give it up.

Angelika Mosaic

Landmark's Bethesda Row Cinema

West End Cinema

T2 Trainspotting

Directed by Danny Boyle

(U.K., 2017, 117 min.)

First there was an opportunity — then there was a betrayal. Twenty years have gone by since the events of "Trainspotting." Much has changed but just as much remains the same as Mark (Ewan McGregor) returns to the only place he can ever call home, where his friends and a litany of emotions are waiting for him (English and Bulgarian).

Angelika Mosaic

Landmark's Bethesda Row Cinema

Landmark's E Street Cinema

Their Finest

Directed by Lone Scherfig

(U.K., 2017, 117 min.)

A British film crew attempts to boost morale during World War II by making a propaganda film after the Blitzkrieg.

Angelika Mosaic

Opens Fri., April 14

Voice from the Stone

Directed by Eric D. Howell

(U.S./Italy, 2017, 94 min.)

Set in 1950s Tuscany, "Voice from the Stone" is the haunting and suspenseful story of Verena, a solemn nurse drawn to aid a young boy who has fallen silent since the sudden passing of his mother.

Angelika Pop-Up at Union Market

Opens Fri., April 28

We Are Jews from Breslau

Directed by Karin Kaper and Dirk Szuszies

(Germany, 2016, 108 min.)

They were young, looking forward to the future with great expectations; they felt at home in Breslau, the city with the third biggest Jewish community in Germany at that time. Then, Hitler came to power. From this time forward, these young people were connected by the common fate of being persecuted as Jews — 14 of whom are the protagonists of this documentary.

Edlavitch DCJCC

Mon., April 24, 7 p.m.

The Zookeeper's Wife

Directed by Niki Caro

(U.S., 2017, 124 min.)

The keepers of the Warsaw Zoo, Antonina and Jan Zabinski, help save hundreds of people and animals during the German invasion of World War II.

Angelika Mosaic

Landmark's Bethesda Row Cinema

Landmark's E Street Cinema

Farsi

The Salesman

(Forushande)

Directed by Asghar Farhadi

(Iran/France, 2017, 125 min.)

A young couple living in Tehran act together in an amateur production of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." When their flat becomes damaged, they are forced to move into a new apartment, where an intruder attacks the wife, prompting her husband to become an amateur detective in an attempt to find the assailant and soothe his wife's addled nerves.

Angelika Pop-Up at Union Market

Landmark's Bethesda Row Cinema

French

Frantz

Directed by François Ozon

(France/Germany, 2017, 113 min.)

In this intense romantic drama set in the aftermath of World War I, a young German who grieves the death of her fiancé in France meets a mysterious Frenchman who visits the fiancé's grave to lay flowers. While other townsfolk revile him as a murderer of Germans, the dead soldier's parents, at first suspicious, welcome him into their home and treasure his stories about their son. But there are hidden secrets that eventually surface as the relationship deepens.

Landmark's Theatres

Opens Fri., April 7

Raw

(Grave)

Directed by Julia Ducournau

(France/Belgium, 2017, 99 min.)

At 16, Justine is a brilliant student starting out at veterinary school, where she encounters a decadent, merciless and dangerously seductive world. Desperate to fit in, she participates in a hazing ritual where she is forced to eat raw meat for the first time. Once tasted, Justine's appetite for meat grows, and as her true self begins to emerge, she must face the terrible and unexpected consequences of her newfound passion.

Landmark's E Street Cinema

German

I Was Nineteen

(Ich war neunzehn)

Directed by Konrad Wolf

(Germany, 1967, 119 min.)

More than 10 years have passed since protagonist Gregor Hecker and his family fled from Germany to Moscow. In April 1945, at the age of 19, Gregor returns to Germany as a lieutenant in the Red Army. He feels like a stranger on German soil, and just like his Russian comrades, he is ashamed of the German people. Nevertheless, he realizes that he is different from his comrades in arms, for this defeated land is his home.

Goethe-Institut

Tue., April 11, 6:30 p.m.

Westwind

Directed by Robert Thalheim

(Germany, 2011, 90 min.)

Summer 1988: As promising young athletes in the GDR, the twins Isa and Doreen are allowed to attend a training camp at Lake Balaton in Hungary. There, they meet Arne and Nico from Hamburg. What begins as a holiday romance develops for Doreen and Arne into a serious love affair, for which the girl from the Saxon province is willing to risk everything.

Goethe-Institut

Fri., April 28, 6:30 p.m.

Japanese

After the Storm

(Umi yori mo mada fukaku)

Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda

(Japan, 2017, 117 min.)

Dwelling on his past glory as a prize-winning author, Ryota wastes the money he makes as a private detective on gambling and can barely pay his child support. After the death of his father, his aging mother and beautiful ex-wife seem to be moving on with their lives. Renewing contact with his initially distrusting family, Ryota struggles to take back control of his existence.

Landmark's E Street Cinema

Your Name

(Kimi no na wa)

Directed by Makoto Shinkai

(Japan, 2017, 106 min.)

Mitsuha is the daughter of the mayor of a small mountain town. She's a straightforward high school girl who has no qualms about letting it be known that she's uninterested in Shinto rituals or helping her father's electoral campaign. Instead she dreams of leaving the boring town and trying her luck in Tokyo. Taki is a high school boy in Tokyo who works part-time in an Italian restaurant and every night has a strange dream where he becomes ... a high school girl in a small mountain town (Japanese and Mandarin).

Angelika Mosaic

Opens Fri., April 7

Romanian

Graduation

(Bacalaureat)

Directed by Cristian Mungiu

(Romania/France/Belgium, 2016, 128 min.)

Romeo is a seemingly honest doctor who regrets having settled in his native Romania, a country still teeming with corruption and back dealings. He channels his ambitions for a better life into his teenage daughter, Eliza, who's just one exam away from securing a scholarship to a prestigious British university. But when Eliza is attacked on the eve of her test, endangering her ability to pass, Romeo takes matters into his own hands to ensure her success. Landmark's Theatres

Opens Fri., April 14

Slovak

The Teacher

(Ucitelka)

Directed by Jan Hrebejk

(Slovak Republic, 2016, 102 min.)

Set in the early 1980s in Czechoslovakia, an elementary school principal calls an urgent meeting for parents. There are allegations that a seemingly kind teacher is using her students to manipulate their parents into providing a host of perks. Will the teacher's cozy connections with the Communist Party keep the parents silent or will they stand up against the corruption?

The Avalon Theatre

Thu., April 13, 5:15 p.m.

Spanish

All About My Mother

(Todo sobre mi madre)

Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

(Spain, 1999, 101 min.)

In Pedro Almodóvar's Oscar-winning homage to women — and all men who want to become women — single mother Manuela watches her only son die on his 17th birthday while running to get a stage actress's autograph. As the heartbroken mother embarks on her quest to find the boy's transsexual father, she befriends a richly diverse assortment of women, including the actress her son died pursuing (Spanish and Catalan).

AFI Silver Theatre

Sun., April 9, 7 p.m.,

Tue., April 11, 7:15 p.m.

Bad Education

(La mala educación)

Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

(Spain, 2004, 106 min.)

Enrique is a young film director. Actor Ignacio turns up looking for work and identifies himself as a childhood friend. Enrique doesn't recognize the man, but his reaction to the name Ignacio signals a deeply intertwined past and unexpected twists.

AFI Silver Theatre

Fri., April 14, 7:30 p.m.,

Sat., April 15, 7:45 p.m.,

Sun., April 16, 7:45 p.m.

Broken Embraces

(Los abrazos rotos)

Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

(Spain, 2009, 127 min.)

News of the death of a powerful Madrilenian businessman forces Harry, a blind man who was once a filmmaker, to confront his tragic past in this film-within-a-film, which brings together love, obsession, voyeurism and melancholy in a moving meditation on filmmaking and cinema.

AFI Silver Theatre

Sun., April 16, 5:20 p.m.,

Tue., April 18, 7:15 p.m.

I'm So Excited

(Los amantes pasajeros)

Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

(Spain, 2013, 90 min.)

Something has gone wrong with the landing gear of a plane en route from Madrid to Mexico City. Is drugging the passengers and entertaining them with music and dance the best way to maintain calm?

AFI Silver Theatre

Sun., April 23, 8:45 p.m.

Julieta

Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

(Spain, 2016, 99 min.)

Pedro Almodóvar's 20th feature film weaves three Alice Munro short stories into a Hitchcockian melodrama about mothers and daughters, passion and grief and the hard changes one undergoes in a lifetime.

AFI Silver Theatre

Tue., April 25, 7 p.m.,

Thu., April 27, 7 p.m.

The Skin I Live In

(La piel que habito)

Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

(Spain, 2011, 120 min.)

Plastic surgeon Robert (Antonio Banderas) turns his mansion into an underground operating room where he unscrupulously seeks to create a synthetic skin that could have saved his deceased wife, who was badly burned in an accident.

AFI Silver Theatre

Sat., April 22, 10 p.m.,

Tue., April 25, 9:05 p.m.

Talk to Her

(Hable con ella)

Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

(Spain, 2002, 112 min.)

Two men forge a relationship as they use the intricacies of the spoken word — however improbably — to communicate with the comatose women they love.

AFI Silver Theatre

Fri., April 7, 7 p.m.,

Mon., April 10, 7:15 p.m.

Truman

Directed by Cesc Gay

(Spain/Argentina, 2015, 108 min.)

Diagnosed with terminal cancer, Julián has decided to forgo treatment, and spend his final days tying up loose ends. When childhood friend Tomás pays his ailing friend an unexpected visit, the two friends set out to finalize Julián's funeral arrangements, settle his accounts and, most importantly, find a home for his beloved dog, Truman, in this heartfelt and surprisingly humorous film (Spanish and English).

Landmark's Theatres

Opens Fri., April 14

Volver

Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

(Spain, 2006, 121 min.)

Raimunda (Penélope Cruz) and Sole (Lola Dueñas) are sisters in a working-class neighborhood south of Madrid, whose parents died a few years prior in a tragic fire. One day, their dead mother returns as a ghost to resolve issues with Raimunda, who is busy dealing with her husband's death and calming her daughter.

AFI Silver Theatre

Sat., April 15, 5:15 p.m.,

Sun., April 16, 8 p.m.

Turkish

Kedi

Directed by Ceyda Torun

(Turkey/U.S., 2017, 79 min.)

Hundreds of thousands of Turkish cats roam the metropolis of Istanbul freely. For thousands of years they've wandered in and out of people's lives, becoming an essential part of the communities that make the city so rich. Claiming no owners, the cats of Istanbul live between two worlds, neither wild nor tame — and they bring joy and purpose to those people they choose to adopt.